


from one father to another - don't you love your girls?

by ladyoflosgar



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2020-10-18 21:56:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20646284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyoflosgar/pseuds/ladyoflosgar
Summary: Rodrik Ryswell rides to Winterfell seeking justice for his murdered grandson. He does not get it.





	from one father to another - don't you love your girls?

**Author's Note:**

> Roose has no feelings, you see. Those leeches that he loves so well sucked all the passions out of him years ago. He does not love, he does not hate, he does not grieve. - Barbrey Dustin, ADWD 37
> 
> They said Robert Baratheon was strong as a bull and fearless in battle, a man who loved nothing better than war. And with him stood the great lords her brother had named the Usurper's dogs, cold-eyed Eddard Stark with his frozen heart, and the golden Lannisters, father and son, so rich, so powerful, so treacherous. - Daenerys Targaryen, ACOK 27

297 AC

The Lord of the Rills saddled his fastest courser and rode hard for Winterfell. A guard must have seen his banner flying, for the whole Stark family was arrayed in the courtyard when he passed through the gate.

He dismounted and knelt. “Lord Stark,” he acknowledged, gritting his teeth. _It should have been Brandon._ A servant came to tend to his horse.

“What brings you to Winterfell today, Lord Ryswell? We did not have word of your coming.” Cold, cold, Stark’s voice was cold.

“I would request a private audience with you, my lord,” he said. Such words as he needed were not meant for ravens. They were not meant for open court.

He greeted Stark’s family as was proper, stiffly kissing the hand of the woman standing in Barbrey’s place. “Lady Stark.”

“Lord Ryswell,” she smiled.

Next he shook the hand of the oldest boy, and then the second one. The youngest was a baby in the arms of his nursemaid. All three of Stark’s sons looked like fish, not wolf pups.

But he had to be polite to Stark’s older girl, for all that she was the trout woman made young. She was the last girl in the world to ever strike his poor grandson’s fancy. _She was so delightful, Grandfather! So lovely, _dear Domeric had said to him, on the last day they had ever seen each other. _She cried when I played my harp and tied her hair ribbon around my tourney sword when I went to spar her brother. She said she knew I’d be a true knight someday!_ So in his pain he knelt and smiled as wide as he could and kissed her hand, and said, “My, my, my! What a lovely little lady!” like Dom would have. Dom’s courtesies were always perfect. But Domeric was gone, and this girl was here.

The younger girl, though, she was a little Lyanna. It hurt to look at her. At that age, Lyanna had run around with Barb and Beth, the three racing on their ponies. _My girls…_

Lord Stark led Rodrik to his solar. He closed the door.

“What business do you have for me, Lord Ryswell?” Stark sat down behind his desk and motioned for Rodrik to do the same. His old bones creaked. His old heart ached.

“I trust you have had word of my grandson?” Stark seemed confused. Rodrik had more than one grandson.

Stark finally came to. “Roose Bolton’s boy?”

“The one.”

“Aye. We had a bird from the Dreadfort maester. Terrible news. You have my condolences. A loss for the whole North,” Ned Stark said. “He would have made a fine lord one day. What of him?”

Rodrik took a deep breath. “I come here seeking justice, my lord, justice for my family. For Domeric Bolton’s death.”

“Justice? For what? He died of a bad belly.” Ned Stark, _Ned Stark_, stone for eyes, ice for a heart.

Now Rodrik was wroth. “A bad belly? That’s what Roose had the maester write! Poison, it was! It was murder! My grandson was murdered! The last we have of Bethany, murdered!”

His pain did not move Stark. “How do you know it was murder? Who murdered him? Do you have evidence?”

“The Bastard! Roose’s bastard. Ramsay Snow! The one he raped into that miller girl. Domeric rode out to break bread with him, to meet his brother, the fool, and then he came home, and then couldn’t keep down any of his meals, he couldn’t eat, he couldn’t leave the privy, and then he was dead. Strong, healthy lads of six-and-ten do not just keel over and die of bad bellies or eating spoiled food!

“House Ryswell demands the head of Ramsay Snow.” The Old Stallion was fuming. He had fire in his eyes. His family would have their due.

Ned Stark shook his head. “What evidence do you have, Lord Ryswell?”

Rodrik sighed. “I have people there. The Dreadfort, Weeping Town, all the rest… some in every settlement in Bolton lands. I put them there when Roose asked for my Bethany. To watch over her. To report back to me. You know the tales of what goes on in Bolton lands! Why would I send my girl there without eyes of my own? When Beth died I kept them on to watch over my grandson. By then the Bastard had already started his cruelties…

“Did you hear of the boy? Do you know what he does? He hunts women, with his rancid manservant, Stark. He sends them running through the woods, sets his hounds on them, rapes them, flays them, _kills them! _In the Dreadwood you will see the blood on the trees! Go there and see!

“And don’t get me started on what the village people heard him saying about my grandson. He hated the very idea of Domeric! That miller bitch put it in his ear that the Dreadfort was his, that he should take the seat that was his by right.

“When Dom went riding out to meet the Bastard, do you think anyone would go in with him? Enter the house where the Bastard lived? No! Of course not! They feared him, and they feared Roose, and what he would do if they said anything! Of course there were no witnesses! Of course there was no evidence… Roose had the silent sisters boil off his bones and sealed him in the crypts not a day after he was dead!

“Ramsay Snow is just a boy as well,” Stark said, shaking his head again. “I refuse to execute a mere boy without evidence of his guilt. Of any of these things you say. Rumors and suspicion are not evidence and knowledge. And I cannot open an investigation unless Lord Bolton also brings something of this matter to me. Domeric was his son. Domeric was his heir. It’s his business. I can’t intervene as Warden when the Lord has not. It’s against our laws.”

“He won’t! He won’t. Too much will come to light if he does! You know what he says… A peaceful land, a quiet people! His smallfolk are too cowed in fear to say anything! They would never raise this with you! They would thank you if you killed the Bastard!

“And now, Roose has taken the Bastard to the Dreadfort! To take my grandson’s place! He sleeps in my grandson’s chambers! He wears Domeric’s clothes! Of course Roose would not bring this to you!”

“If Roose does not say anything, then I cannot take his bastard’s head. I will not break the law.” Eddard Stark. Cold as winter. Cruel as a wolf…

Rodrik sighed. “Please. Let us have something. He didn’t even give Dom a proper funeral, like he never gave one to Beth. When Beth died, it was the Greyjoy Rebellion, and the Dreadfort was left to a steward, a maester, and an eight-year-old boy! We excused it, we forgave it then. But Dom? The heir to the Dreadfort? He deserved a funeral! Roose never gave us a chance to say goodbye, to grieve, to mourn!

“I ask you now not as my liege lord, but from one father to another. A father of two girls. What would you do for your girls? To save them pain? To honor their memory? Don’t you love your girls, Stark? Wouldn’t you bring down the sun just to spare them tears? He was all we had left of Beth, Stark! My Barb loved him so!

“My Barbrey is inconsolable. She has not left her chambers for two turns of the moon! All of Barrowton is draped in black! Harwood Stout is running Barrow Hall… That town loved Beth’s boy, Stark. And my other grandchildren… I have not heard their laughter in the Rillseat since we heard the terrible news! I had to stop my sons from riding to the Weeping Water and ripping the Bastard apart with their own hands!

Rodrik sighed again. “If you can’t give us the Bastard’s head, then, please, let Barbrey have Willam’s bones back. Let my family have my nephew back. Ser Mark! Willam! You named them your _friends! _Tell us where they are Stark, and we will sail to Dorne and bring them home ourselves.”

“You know I cannot tell you where they are, Lord Ryswell.”

By then he was glad that he hadn’t wed Barb to this one. He wouldn’t have loved her like Brandon did. Brandon had a human heart that beat. Brandon could feel. Brandon was a wolf who defended his pack, a man who loved. Even if Brandon had married the Tully woman, he would have taken the Bastard’s head for Barb. He wouldn’t have waited for Roose. He wouldn’t have waited for Barb to ask… This one though, this Ned… he was like Roose, with a cold, stern stare, a face that revealed nothing. Roose didn’t have a heart. Roose didn’t feel. Ned Stark’s heart was made of ice. This wolf did not feel. He would have drained his girl of her blood, her warmth, just like Roose did, by the end. But where Roose leeched Beth dry, Ned Stark would have sunk his fangs into Barbrey and left her to bleed out in the snow.

Roose he could not totally hate, for Roose had given them Dom. Ned Stark though – Ned Stark had given his family nothing but pain.

Stark looked at him with his cold, unfeeling eyes. “I believe we are done here, Lord Ryswell.”

“I believe you are right, Lord Stark. I beg your leave to go.”

“You have my leave.” Rodrik bowed his head and stepped out of the solar. The Bastard would live, had taken Dom’s place. He would have no justice for his family. Not for Dom. Not for Barb. Not for Beth. Not for his girls…

_By the gods_, thought the Old Stallion. _I hope the Bastard meets your daughters, Stark. I hope he makes them cry. I hope he makes them scream._


End file.
